Thunderbolt Pagoda is a progressive space rock group from Minneapolis and are absolutely fantastic. So when they asked me to collaborate with them for Kosmische Drone set for the Drone Not Drones (http://dronenotdrones.com/) event I jumped at the chance. Here are some pics of our performance that night.
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Former members of Skye Klad, Salamander, Vortex, Ousia, new Darkly Kosmiche Space Rock Group. Thunderbolt Pagoda!
by Phil McMullin
... And last but not least, Skye Klad's self-titled album on the Mutant Music Label. Notable amongst Terrascopic circles for being the acid-rock lunar vehicle to Salamander's orbital space-deck for guitarist Erik Wivinus, tracks range from the righteously tripped opening cut 'Mind's Eye' via effects-laden Sabbatheseque freakouts ('Vespers', 'Ionosphere') and slow-fused burn-outs ('Amber' and a cover of Low's 'Sleep at the Bottom') to the sonic majesty of the closing 'Falling Clear'. Instrumentally tight and by all accounts transcendental live, methinks we'll be hearing more of Skye Klad before too long.
Rockerilla (Italy)
"Birds Of Appetite" & "Skye Klad"
A trip beyond the temporal dimension ensured by a psychedelic spice-loaded double LP, and one beyond the co-ordinates of cosmos conveyed by the magmatic propellant of a space-rock band as dark and abrasive as few others...
The double vinyl package (heavyweight as in the good past times) is the third seal bearing the moniker of Salamander, an incredible quartet led by the visionary Sean Connaughty and Erik Wivinus, prophetic experimenters of future soundscapes in the previous "Red Ampersand" and "Red Mantra", and now come to a sonic turn with shades of exotic folk, of Asia and ancient Egypt, of increasingly half-acoustic and less and less noise scraped timbre solutions, partially tuned to what recently proposed by Shalabi Effect or Idyll Swords. This holds especially true for "Birds of Appetite"'s first volume, opened by the indianisms of "Vessel Is Vacant" e "Isthmus", coloured of hippy pigmentation in "Minutia Divine" (a little gothic tale set in the woods of Twink, Sam Gopal, and "Beard Of Stars"' Tyrannosaurus Rex), exposed to the heavy weather of "Sadhu", slowly self-assembling as a minimal tangram until finding a Floydian beat to the Sun's heart control room. The third side, wholly taken by "Trench Of Fire", is the more experimental and chaotic, thundering and reverberating until encompassing globular masses of scratched post-rock, without renouncing to introverted lysergic combustions of High Tide ancestry. Finale with the psychedelic gallop of "Mumpsimus' Lament" and the solemn floydescent progression of "The Wreck Of Old", liquefied in the vapours of an enigmatic organ. Music of lavish fantasy, as lavish is the packaging, wrapped in the beautiful paintings, psychedelic as well, by Connaughty. Definitely worth your money, even though the postal freight will add a sensible contribution, but be quick because this is a very limited edition...
Erik Wivinus is also member of a local legend in the Twin Cities' space-rock scene, Skye Klad (not to be confused with the almost homonyms Skyclad, champions of early 90ties folk-metal). Especially known as a stable presence of the Strange Daze festival (the one dedicated to the Hawkwind) and as organisers of the Solarium (happening that annually sets Minneapolis ablaze with its no-stop of psychedelia, free jazz and other alternative musics), the five relevant psycho-terrorists had up to now made only one impossible to find self-produced CD. "Skye Klad" restarts from zero with its really hard mixture of Hawkwind/Can space fuel and Bauhaus/Joy Division dark wave, made credible by a vocalist, Adam Backstrom, sounding as a cross-breed between Peter Murphy and Damo Suzuki. Another distinctive element is given by the virtual absence of keyboards, replaced in the topic moments by a theremin. Big emotions come from the opener "Mind's Eye" (with a surf emphasis!), from "Ionosfere"'s atmospheric suggestions, from "Toxaphene"'s vibrating freakbeat, from "Amber" and "Falling Clear"'s barrettesque hallucinations. An absolute must, almost completely downloadable from the band's site (www.skyeklad.com). A kick in the stomach of the logic of copyright and profit...
Skye Klad, Salamander
by Fred Mills - Phoenix New Times 09/27/2001
Skye Klad (Mutant Music), Birds of Appetite (Camera Obscura)
The last time we checked in with the lusty psychedelic scene of the Twin Cities, there were such bands as . . . er, uhh . . . well, Prince, and Soul Asylum, and of course those space-rockin' Replacements . . . whew. In any event, better late than never. Minneapolis and surrounding burgs have been quietly stashing away LSD for a decade or so, finally getting up the nerve to spike the community water supply a couple of years ago. The results? A ground swell of lysergic musical investigations that peels back the inner eyelid with great finesse. Witnesses for the prosecution: Skye Klad and Salamander.
The former group has been around since about '99, combining the churning dissonance of Can and Sonic Youth, the full-on fuzztone skree of Hawkwind and Spacemen 3 and the arena-size heaviness of Floyd and Sabbath. Skye Klad is psychedelic in the classic sense. The singer in particular helps keep things grounded; his baritone provides a Bauhaus/Doorsian edge to the songs, although his flair for the extemporaneous might suggest former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki at times as well. The compelling "Toxaphene" perfectly sums up the group's modus operandi: throbbing rhythm section powered by a neo-surf bass line, insistent maracas and tambourine, zooming/arpeggioed guitars, and chanted vocal incantations draping things in dark drama. "Drama" in fact is an operative term for Skye Klad, and when listening to this debut album one readily imagines liquid light shows and laser displays accompanying the sonics.
Salamander, by contrast, sets its controls on a subtler, more impressionistic path to the heart of the sun. The band is no less psychedelic, however, simply unconcerned with velocity or volume, similar at times in tone and texture to both Bardo Pond and Bevis Frond or, to cite older precedents, Quicksilver and Ash Ra Tempel. Densely echoed multitracked strings (acoustic and electric guitars, hammered dulcimer, bass), treated percussion, whispery samples, loops and E-bow, snatches of space-whisper voices -- all collide and coalesce in a globular prism of sound before being sucked down through a wormhole of blissful drones. There's a pervasive raga-rock vibe, too -- Middle Eastern-tinged pastoral folk-rock has always enjoyed its close kinship with psych -- making a song like "Minutia Divine" the perfect contrasting chill-out to the interplanetary whoosh of preceding number "Ithsmus" [sic]. This is Salamander's third album since '97, a double-LP (or 65-minute CD) with hints of non-grandiose conceptual sci-fi unity; one cut, "Trench of Fire," runs for 20 minutes, while "Yomin" contains passages featuring Leonard Nimoy reciting words penned by Ray Bradbury. It's easily one of the most accomplished and riveting slabs of mind expansion to turn up in recent memory, a high-water mark for any locale or period, not just for Minneapolis circa 2001.
Note that the two groups are more than just water brothers musically and spiritually. They're joined at the hip literally as well, sharing a couple of members. For that matter, multi-instrumentalist Erik Wivinus, of both outfits, has his own side project, an ambient folk-psych duo called Gentle Tasaday, and he also guests on a fellow Salamander's side project, Vortex Navigation Company, which no doubt by now has spawned additional side projects . . . you get the drift. Psychedelia's funny like that. It just keeps replicating and mutating, and the Twin Cities space-rock scene appears to be a fertile Petri dish of musicality.
Local space-rockers Skye Klad once again host the must-see band cabaret Solarium, this time featuring two "name acts" who could easily sell out the Entry in their own right-Duluth's Low and local Jazzbo's Happy Apple. Perhaps the Klad are hoping to attract only the most die-hard fans of each group; it wouldn't surprise me if they did. This is, after all, not just and experimental music showcase, but an attempt to incorporate "surrealism, Fortean science...and millenialist paranoia" into your standard 7th St. Entry electro-jam--at least according to the latest emails. Members of Savage Aural Hotbed, Ousia, February, and Salamander will also perform, and the show benefits moon-rock pioneer Simeon of the Silver Apples, who was recently left paralyzed from a car accident.
-City Pages - 02.03.99
